In more Blizzard news, today they announced that Curse of Naxxramas: A Hearthstone Adventure now has a release date. To jump straight to the end of the suspense we've all been sitting through since April, players in the Americas will have access beginning Tuesday, July 22, which means I need to figure out when I'll finally have time to finish the tutorial and flail like my Forever Newb self figuring out how to get my free first wing. Europe, your wait isn't too much longer – Curse of Naxxramas comes to you the following day on Wednesday, the 23rd, but since you live in the future already, it's almost the same day.

This will be for the first wing in Naxxramas, the Arachnid Quarter. Each following week, players will be able to unlock of the following wings, either by real life money (7 bucks per wing, but there are also tiered packages) or in-game gold (700 shiny ones per wing, with no option to buy bundles). Blizzard's put out a ton of updates following up to today's announcement, which for people like me, have been constant trips down memory lane. I'm not a Trading Card Game kind of gamer, but I've been reading through the guides here and on GGMaster to get an understanding of what to do. It's completely outside of my comfort zone and genre, but I think this has the potential to be a nice casual game for someone like me.

I have the bad habit of pretty much just playing the same game with a different name. I play very specific MMOs and I prefer healing. Complete Heal chains and counting to 6 seconds before casting isn't thrilling, but when the shit hits the fan and you have to break away from your routine and use strategy to keep your teammates up and running is what I thrive on. Solo healing Upper Black Rock Spire when healers didn't solo it, never mind a Restoration Druid before any of their initial buffs in vanilla bringing them up to par with other healing classes, well, that's one of my fondest memories in World of Warcraft. And all for what? Some plus five stamina and plus three intellect gloves? Damn we felt badass back then. Now my Restoration Druid has close to 500,000 hit points (it gets even more absurd in my Feral Guardian tanking gear) and I laugh at how crazy it all is.

Getting back to Hearthstone, I think that this game has what I need to try new things. I'm not big on it, but I'm a huge sucker for nostalgia. Did you see that trip down memory lane I just babbled on about in the above paragraph? While Blizzard is heavily criticized for not stepping out of their comfort zone by creating a new, fresh IP, I think putting Naxxramas in Hearthstone is a super smart move. I mean, things like this will get nostalgia nerds like myself out there, all trying new things and stuff. Smart move, Blizzard.

About The Author

Vendolyn's been playing MMOs since 1999, although Vendolyn in-game often becomes a long-term shelved alt. When she's not gaming, she's likely marathoning some questionable TV show or babbling about music to no end. She really likes goats.